


some revelation is at hand

by acanaceous



Series: the falcon cannot hear the falconer [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Chapter 700 (Naruto), can i get a yeehaw for respecting women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 15:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17205620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acanaceous/pseuds/acanaceous
Summary: Be the housewife. The world has unlearned your war, and learned your complacency. You have not.





	some revelation is at hand

01.  
One day Sakura Uchiha, after having finished the laundry and set the table and put the stew in for dinner at a low simmer on the stove, wonders when she became this. She is the wife of Sasuke Uchiha and the mother of his child, and she thinks that she has forgotten how to define herself without him. She thinks that the world has forgotten how to define her without him.

"It's always like this," says Kurenai (wife of Sarutobi Asuma--heroically deceased--, and mother of Mirai). "Behind every man is a woman, and we can't even remember her name."

She is Sakura and she can shatter mountains. She is Sakura and her rage brings gods to their knees. She is Sakura and she plays housewife for a man who left her, leaves her, never comes back for her; who left her to raise their daughter alone. She no longer takes missions and she has not used her strength to do more than move furniture for years.

She is waiting for Sasuke, but he isn't waiting for her. She is waiting for her childhood fantasies, but they are ground to dust beneath her own heel.

That night, when Sarada is sleeping and Konoha is quiet, Sakura puts on her gloves and unpins her hair and walks into the Forest of Death. She is as much a monster as her teammates, and although the world has forgotten her the ground has not, and it trembles beneath her feet.

02.  
Hinata Uzumaki (nee Hyuuga) has grown from a shy and timid girl into a shy and timid woman, and she has long since passed the point where it was considered cute. Now is the time to forge a path boldly, light the way for those who follow.

But that is her husband's domain, and she is a good wife. She raises the children and cooks and cleans and aspires to nothing more. This is, after all, what she has dreamed of since childhood: the love of her idol. Naruto. Is she not happy? Is she not, at least, content? This is not what her father made her to be, but it is what she has become.

She is not a little girl anymore, but under the weight of her father's steely gaze and his impossible standard, behind Naruto's shield that stands between her and what he thinks will hurt her, she feels like a child again.

This is not a good thing.

She has struggled all her life to shed her softness, discard her weakness like so much shed skin and remake her bones from steel. But Hinata's weakness is coiled around her spine and soul and she cannot cast it away. Her father has ever found her lacking, but Naruto treasures her softness. He tells her there is no need for battle, no need for war: he can protect her.

What Naruto has forgotten--what even Hinata herself has forgotten--is that she does not want to be protected.

Enough men have died for her.

03.

The giants who hold the world under their fingernails hold each other about the wrist. They support each other, these men who keep the world turning.

Underfoot, the women go to work. There is a proverb about a lion and a mouse: people say the mouse hides when the lion rages, and people say that the mouse can escape a lion's trap, and people say the lion's might and majesty can be fooled by the mouse's quickness and cunning.

Men will say this to her, that she is the mouse who dances across treacherous terrain. They will tell her that although she is small and slight, her mind lets her do what lions cannot. They will tell her this, like they are complimenting her.

"I'm no mouse," she will tell them. "I'm the fucking dragon."

**Author's Note:**

> man..............................the epilogue did, like, the entire concept of women so dirty. i mean, dude. bro. come on


End file.
